Sidequest: A 100% Offline Vision‑Language Scavenger Hunt Where the Screen Is the Shortest Part of the Walk

Description and use

Sidequest is a fully offline app that uses an open‑weight vision‑language model to instantly verify objects found during outdoor scavenger hunts, keeping the screen minimal and protecting privacy.

Problem

Parents give children digital games that replace outdoor exploration with addictive screens, while paper scavenger hunts cannot verify discoveries.

Outcome

Sidequest delivers a fully offline, on‑device vision‑language verification workflow that keeps screens minimal, protects privacy, and provides instant feedback to children and parents during outdoor scavenger hunts.

Workflow

• Present a daylight‑readable naturalist clue on the phone
• Child walks and observes the environment with the screen dark
• Child taps camera to capture a photo of a candidate object
• On‑device quantized vision model evaluates the image in 43 ms and displays a Blaze progress bar
• If Blaze reaches 100 % a field note appears and the child can continue
• Parents may tap "Count it!" to override ambiguous matches
• After all 5 stops a printable field journal is generated locally

Evidence

Sidequest does not use artificial intelligence to glue eyes to glass. It uses an open-weight vision-language model running inside the browser as a quiet, objective trail referee:

Source

In just 43 milliseconds, an on-device quantized vision model evaluates whether the image genuinely matches the clue against competing distractors.

Source

The entire codebase is open-source under the Apache-2.0 License: https://github.com/Shreyansh00987/Sidequest

Source